#pax compact

The entrance to the campus looms before them as Aunty steps inside the welcome center to check them in. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker trail after her, each holding hands with Chase and Heatwave. The threshold of the door is as tall as Bumblebee's knees, and Tracks heaves on his hand to get him up. Bee's plating contracts a little bit upon seeing all the other people inside, a whole mess of group homes and families come to say hello to students. Has he ever been in a space this big before? The echo of metal and chatter and movement swells as they make their way further inside. Tracks is trying to look as aloof and haughty as a little nymph can, so Bee steps on his pede to make him stop.

"Ow! Quit it!"

Bee snickers at Tracks' expression, and so do the other four children when they turn around to look.

"Tracks, would you walk up here with me please?" Aunty asks mildly, still scanning the room for an available help desk.

"I would if Bumblebee would stop being so slow! It's his fault!"

Sideswipe hoots when Tracks stomps his pede on the floor.

"Well then Bumblebee can come up here too." She holds her hand out expectantly.

The other children look back to him. Chase peeps, "Uh oh!"

Oh no. Walk up front with her? With everybody around? Bee would rather stay tucked behind her bulk. He hunches his shoulders but allows Tracks to pull him forward.

"Thank you," Aunty says, prim and satisfied, taking Tracks' hand. Bumblebee is far too short to hold hands but shuffles along next to her anyway, staring resolutely at the ground.

"Who's that?" Heatwave says behind him.

"I dunno. A kid," Sideswipe replies.

"And who's that?"

"I dunno!"

"And who's that?"

"I don't know! Heatwave, we dunno anybody here!"

"We could know people here," Sunstreaker says slyly. "Bet I can make a friend before you."

"Nuh uh!"

"Readysetgo-"

Bumblebee stumbles as the twins dash past him and weave their way towards the closest knot of other children.

"Hey!" Chase squeaks. "That's against the rules!"

Aunty heaves a sigh. They had only just made it to a help desk. "Wait here for a moment, you four, I'll be right back."

Doorwings held flat and optics dim, Bee watches her go forlornly. The only familiar, comforting presence in the whole building, and she left them! The noise level ticks up. Tracks has gotten into an argument with Heatwave and raises his voice to be heard. Bee notices adults standing along the walls, watching over the crowd. One of them is looking in their direction. He shies back.

He doesn't wanna be here with all these strangers!

He glances up at the desk. The staff member there is too busy with another person to have noticed them, so he ducks around the corner of the desk and makes towards the far corner of the room. There's a very fancy-looking setup with placards and holographic pillars of names, but the only thing that matters to Bumblebee is the sparkling sized nook behind the base. He squirms into the little space and folds himself up.

Finally. Some peace and quiet.

It lasts for maybe two minutes before Bee hears pedesteps just outside and groans. Then a face peeks in with wide optics.

"Oh. Hi. Sorry."

It's a nymph he's never seen before, a seeker from what he can see of their frame, with blue paint and pointy helm kibble.

"I didn't know anybody was in here."

Bee wiggles around to face him better. "Why? Are you hiding too?"

The nymph shrugs, bending to sit just outside the little nook. "I dunno. It's loud in here. I don't want anybody to pay attention to me."

"Me too!" Someone sensible at last. Bee likes this person already. "Do you wanna come in here with me?"

"I don't think I'd fit, even by myself." He shrugs again, looking gloomy. "My trine are probably gonna find me eventually anyway."

"That's okay. My name's Bumblebee Pax, what's yours?"

"Dirge Safeguard." Dirge holds out a hand with a very serious expression. They shake solemnly. "Nice to meet you."

Dirge, he finds, is not very chatty, but that's okay. Bee has enough to say for the both of them. The nymph doesn't look like he's condescending to listen to a dumb little sparkling, so he's already a better listener than Tracks. If he's listening at all. He honestly might not be, his expression is flat and his gaze swivels lazily from the room at large to Bee in his nook.

Dirge stiffens a few times, looking up like someone's approaching, and Bee goes quiet until he relaxes again. It would be such a pain if anybody found them there and interrupted them. Unless it was somebody just looking to hide like they are, that would be okay. Oh! They should start a club! Bee isn't too sure what a club is or does but it sounds nice so they should do it. Maybe Dirge could come over to the Pax house sometime and they could be friends.

Again Dirge stiffens and focuses on something coming closer. Bee puts his claws over his mouth. He hears pedesteps approaching and sees a shadow grow on the wall.

Noooo..... why now??

Bumblebee sets his jaw in a pout. He is not going to leave his spot no matter what!

"Hey there," a friendly voice says. "Do you think you could help me?"

Dirge offers a sullen shrug.

"I'm looking for someone, a yellow minibot sparkling."

Bumblebee gasps. It couldn't be...

"He's a grounder frame with doorwings, he should be around here somewhere. Have you seen anyone like that?"

Side-eyeing the little space, Dirge mutters, "Maybe. I dunno."

"If you see him-"

"ORION!!!" Bumblebee shrieks, throwing himself onto Dirge's legs to escape the nook.

Between Dirge flailing in alarm and his own scrabbling to get upright, it takes him a few seconds to get a good glimpse, but there he is. It's Orion, he showed up, he's here!

Bee moves to tackle his pedes in the same instant Orion bends down to grab him, and he ends up hoisted against Orion's chest, shaking with the youngling's laughter.

"There you are! You ran off before I got here, Aunty's been looking for you!"

Clamping his arms around Orion's neck, Bumblebee squeezes him tight and tunes out. Something about Heatwave kicking Tracks in the shin, and Sideswipe tripping a random nymph named Strongarm from the Ambus Compact, and Aunty asking everyone where he might have gone, but he doesn't care very much.

The close air in the tunnel made his already whirring vents work harder. His mouth hung open, but he made little noise, having shut off his vocalizer awhile ago to try and keep from crying. He didn’t know how to turn it back on. Aunty could do it for him, if he could get away.

If Aunty was still there when he got back.

His quick pedefalls echoed in the small space, but not loudly enough to drown out the shifting, buzzing, cackling thing chasing him. The whisper of a thousand moving needle points filled his audials like static. He shook his helm, but it wouldn’t go away. He kept taking random turns down different tunnel branches, but it still wouldn’t go away. Why, why wouldn’t the monster just go away!

Something caught the tip of his doorwing and sliced. His engine squealed and he stumbled over his own pedes. It hurt! The tunnel went fuzzy with pain for a second but he kept moving. Something made a delighted hiss, and he glanced back for only a moment.

A skittering swarm of scarlet scraplets made up the monster now, a hundred permanent grins filling the tunnel top to bottom, gnawing at a small, yellow, familiar piece of shrapnel.

He couldn’t feel his left wingtip all of a sudden.

A hard crash into a mesh vent covering knocked him flat on his back. The tunnel terminated here at the other side of the building, a wide street visible just beyond the cover. Even if he had been looking where he was running, it wouldn’t have helped him. The only path was back into the smiling fangs of the monster. He grabbed at the mesh, trying to tear through fibers too tightly woven for even his small claws, and felt his vents hitch over and over. The rustle of too many legs and grinding dentae made his audials ring. There wasn’t anybody on the street. His vocalizer wouldn’t turn on. His caretakers were missing.

He shook the mesh over and over, armor rattling in lieu of sobs. Where was everybody? He just wanted help!

A scraplet nipped at his pede and he kicked it back into the swarm.

Somebody! Aunty! Star Convoy!

A dozen more started creeping forward. He plastered his back to the vent cover, doorwing leaving droplets of energon against the mesh.

Orion!

A rumble and a snick was the only warning he had before the world fell out beneath him.

He was jostling, and moving, and wincing at a million shrill shrieks drowned out by a deep bass roar, and tumbling backwards entangled in suddenly loose mesh, and then he felt the familiar steady grip of someone carrying him in one arm.

“Far from home, bitlet?”

His optics opened and he saw a smouldering crevasse in the wall of the building he had just been trapped in. The tunnel was blown wide open, scraplets charred black littering the space as far back as the light could reach. Not one of them twitched. He gaped through the smoke at them.

Fingers larger than his arm curled into his view and he was lifted up to the warm purr of a chestplate he’d never seen before. He could see his own shocked face in the shiny windows. Looking up, he saw a mech as big as Aunty, with smiling optics, broad pauldrons, and a solid presence that made him start shuddering in sudden relief.

“Hey now, Bumblebee,” the mech hummed, bringing his other hand up after folding away a still-glowing cannon. “You’re alright. The mechannibal is gone. You’re just fine.”

One finger brushed over the missing wingtip and he spasmed away from the touch with a gasp. The mech’s expression darkened. “You will be just fine.”

He turned and strolled down the dark street, sparkling in hand. Very few lights had come on even though it was dusk, and shadows draped themselves across every available surface. Several corners and crannies had shapes of greyed metal peeking out, but Bumblebee could never get a good look before the mech turned and blocked his view. His engine was very deep and steady, even compared to Star Convoy, so he leaned in to rest his audial against the armor and just listen.

After a moment the mech started talking again. “Your Compact is okay. Star Convoy got most kids away from the swarm in time, and Aunty kept them back long enough for everyone else to get to safety. You were the only one who got cornered. Aunty wanted to come after you, but they had started to nibble her.”

He jerked up, clutching at his own stinging doorwing in sympathy.

“She’s got much thicker armor than you, she barely noticed.” He rapped his chestplate with the knuckles of his free hand. “Almost as good as mine.”

Bumblebee opened his mouth to ask something but only the click of his glossa came out, and he remembered his vocalizer was shut off. His face screwed up in frustration as he pawed helplessly at the seams of his neck.

The mech’s brow furrowed. “What’s the matter, bitlet? Glitched your volume control?”

He shook his helm and tried to act out the decision to turn off his voice with only his face and servos. The mech snorted, and he scowled. How else is he supposed to talk without words!

“Hm. Open up for me.” One huge fingertip gently tapped his tiny chestplate.

Bumblebee obliged, folding away the highest panel of his chest and collar. He had to tilt his helm all the way back, just like when Aunty did this. With servos that large, there wasn’t much interior medical work that could be done, but something about it just helped him. The mech was very careful, pressing lightly at the top of his vocalizer box. Bumblebee tried doing a hard reset and spat out some static.

“You aren’t fractured or overheating… have you tried turning it off and back on again?”

He huffed. It’s the second part that’s trouble!

“Try again.”

One last fritz of static and Bumblebee’s vocalizer was back on. He buzzed a few times to get used to it and then beamed. Before the mech could draw his hand away, he used it as a stairstep to launch himself bodily at his face, going for the biggest hug he could muster.

“Thank you thank you I thought I’d have to wait all the way ‘til we find Aunty again ‘coz the monster kept laughing when I cried so I turned it off but I can never figure out how to turn it back on again!”

His loud laughter was even nicer to listen to up here than through his chestplate. “Oh, now you’re the one jumping me? Bumblebee, how could you!” His hands came up to cup his back so he didn’t fall.

“You’re too big to hug all at once!” He sat back with a gasp at a sudden thought. “You knew my name already!”

“I did.” The mech’s optics were twinkling.

“Did you know about me before you came to get me?”

“I did.”

“Am I famous?”

The mech couldn’t stop his surprised snort. “Your caretakers certainly told me enough when they asked if I could find you.”

“Have I met you before?”

“Perhaps you have.”

“What’s your name?”

“You’ll figure it out here soon.”

“Why do you have five fingers?”

“I—” He blinked and flexed one of his hands, puzzled. “Well why not?”

“Are we home yet?”

With a roll of his optics, the mech muttered, “I knew you’d ask that eventually.” He plucked Bumblebee from his collar and tucked him back in the crook of one arm, never changing the steady pace he’d been walking at the whole time. “Give it a few cycles, bitlet. We’re almost there.”

Bumblebee settled back with his audial against armor, listening to his engine thrumming. His injury still stung but it had crystallized now, no longer leaking. Soon enough, mecha started appearing on the streets again, peering inside broken windows and switching lights on. They all watched as the large mech passed. Even an Enforcer stepped aside with a nod. Despite fewer lights than usual, he recognized where they were now.

A familiar wall appeared around the next turn, scored from many sharp needle legs, but still standing. Rocketing out of the gate, Star Convoy drove towards them before transforming and skidding to a halt on his pedes before them, already reaching for Bumblebee. He giggled at the impressive move and leapt into his patron’s arms to be crushed in a hug. He let Star Convoy’s relieved murmurs just wash over him, suddenly exhausted.

“His left doorwing was bitten, and his vocalizer needed a hard reset, but otherwise he seemed perfectly fine on the surface,” the great mech rumbled. “The mecannibal has been taken care of.”

“Thank you sir, thank you,” Star Convoy said, not loosening his grip on Bumblebee. “We didn’t know how to track him down. Thank you.”

“Anyone left without a means to help themselves should be provided assistance, no matter who they are. Sparkling or adult, junker or noble, all frames and functions.” His voice was no different than before, but it filled the street all of a sudden, and Bumblebee lifted his head to watch and saw several bystanders do the same. “No Enforcer barricade should stand between a child and safety. What kind of person would stay and do nothing if given the power to choose the moral thing instead of the legal thing?”

The mech ducked his head to catch Bumblebee’s optic and held out a fist. Bumblebee tapped a giant knuckle enthusiastically, and he quirked a smile.

“What kind of Decepticon would I be?”

“Thank you, Galvatron,” Star Convoy said again as the mech turned to leave, unaffected by the gazes of everyone around him.

Bumblebee watched him go, drowsy but fighting off recharge. Decepticon, huh?